Article on the Rotating Gun Buy Back from 1998.

Subsequently to this article the Police Armourer was charged and convicted as firearms were going in from the Police and coming out again. He was only the small fall guy the men at the top remain untouchable. Ron.

Firearm Owners Association of Australia

RE: POLICE & POLITICIANS, THE CAUSE OF RISING ARMED CRIME

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Report on the rise of armed crime, as printed in the Sunday Mail, October 18th 1998, is no surprise to firearm owners, as they who have had to suffer under the scorn and derision of the mass media, borne the brunt, sacrificed their possessions to sate the egos of politicians, made it their main business to research armed crime on a historical world basis. This research material was sent by literally ton-loads to politicians, in submissions and advice. Many of the politicians came out publicly and admitted they knew that John Howard’s draconian 1996 Gun Laws would have an adverse effect on the lives and security of Australians’, such as Neil Turner, Bob Katter, De-anne Kelly, and Bob Dollin. Many more politicians on both sides of Parliament admitted privately they knew this party-imposed legislation was wrong, yet besides Liz Cunningham, State Member for Gladstone and Graham Campbell, Federal Member for Kalgoorlie, they all voted for it.

So, when you have had your home invaded, your property stolen, your children raped and your wife murdered, you, the people, have no rights to protect yourselves or your family. These politicians installed the legislation that ensures you are vulnerable. Whom do you hold responsible? It has to be these same politicians. Don’t vote for them. Sue them for compensation. They legislated with foreknowledge and intent, completely aware that the criminals would not register or hand in their guns, that the Police had guns to defend themselves and that the politicians employed men with guns to defend them. The only people who are not allowed to defend themselves with guns are people in the law abiding community.

Previous to the Weapons Act of 1990, there was no licence for a long arms in Queensland. In N.S.W. registration, licensing and gun bans prevailed, which had been installed over many years. The Bureau of Statistics and Police figures constantly proved that the misuse of firearms was only a third of the N.S.W figure. This is what made the installation of gun laws in Queensland much more difficult, as every time they tried we would show the comparisons. It was only when Wayne Goss’ government was prepared to defy logic that gun licences were introduced into Queensland.

It may be difficult for some people to get their minds around, but if you were an armed robber, on which side of the border would you operate: – the one in which one in three houses held a firearm that had the capacity to retaliate and hurt the intruder, or the other side which was defenceless? Of course, now that all law abiding citizens in Australia are defenceless, the armed crime is going to increase all over on a consistent basis. It is still higher in N.S.W. because they have had it longer, but eventually, if this situation persists, we in Queensland will catch up.

What magnifies the situation is as the Parliament misplaces its resources and efforts, the real cause of crime is ignored and increases. It spends 18 million employing sixty people to run a gun registration system that only has 150,000 licenced shooters complying with it. Under the old lifetime licence without registration, 320,000 shooters obtained a licence, but when registration was introduced, over half did not comply. It is recorded in Hansard during a speech by Russell Cooper, ex-Minister of Police, when he was opposing gun licences, before he betrayed them, that there were one million firearm owners in Queensland by their estimation.

In years gone bye, we sent our young men overseas with guns to defend our country. We trusted them when they returned. Now they are disarmed and distrusted. Let us not forget.

When all know that gun registration is the same as car registration. No-one with any sanity robs a bank with their registered car, neither will anyone commit a crime with a registered gun. I keep myself reasonably informed on the subject and have yet to ever hear of a Police force finding any information from a Police operated Firearms Registry that has led Police to conviction for a felony. Of course, I have heard of many cases where it is used to harass good citizens who have been late with a renewal or a dealer who has been slack with his mass of paper work. Real crimes, crimes against the public, have never been solved using gun registers.

Where do criminals obtain their hand guns (handguns are the main choice).To learn, one only has to have an idea of who has their hand in with the most drugs in the State of Queensland. If an honest investigation was made historically, the biggest suppliers and growers have been the Police. It’s not that all Policemen are bent, but senior police are bent and no one has the power to remove them. None of these CJC or Connelly/Ryan investigations come to anything because their staff are appointed and vetted by Jim O’Sullivan. Jim was the first into Terry Lewis’ office to get at the files. Jim was the number one man under Fitzgerald, the man who got all the money and found travel rorts, but not drugs. It was supposed to be about drugs, gambling and prostitution, but the only thing they have done about these issues is to ignore one and legalise the other two. Jim O’Sullivan is not about crime control, but about controlling crime. The situation is mirrored in every state in Australia with an investigating commission on a full time basis putting up a show of an investigation. Only the small fry who are not in the circle get prosecuted, for standing over shopkeepers for fish and chips and such like. The big police crims get protection. Some may say “where’s your evidence’? Well, we have it and when we go to the media with our evidence, which in one small instance is one of the computers from the Gun Buy Back Project, which has evidence of the Police re-circulating guns from the Police Armoury, the Police Museum and. Police Training Academy, it’s too heavy for them and they pull out. The Project gave a figure for all the guns handed in. The computer which prints the receipts tells us another figure, less than half. What happened to the rest? Did they not exist or were they sold through the back door? Mr. Robert Carson was the head of that Project, Jim O’Sullivan’s number one man. Jim has protected him through thick and thin. When the same Police staff that was re-circulating Police guns through Buy-Back are suspended from the Police Armoury, when the Auditor-General finds massive deficiencies, when surrendered guns from Police Armoury are used in armed robbery, Jim pulls Robert Carson out of the fiery furnace again and again.

It’s not just in Queensland. Earlier this year the NSW Police lost 1400 40-calibre Glock Pistols which were to replace some of their revolvers. At first, when contacted by Courier Mail journalist Rory Callinan, the Police information officer denied it on two separate occasions. They were offered for sale in lots of 20 on the NSW black market at $3,000 each (Crims always have plenty of money). The NSW Police information officer still denied that they have lost them. Then two were recovered in a robbery. Then the NSW Police admitted they were part of their missing consignment (phone NSW Police Armoury to confirm this information).

If you still have any doubts about thousands of guns going for a walk via the Queensland Police, we can supply you with serial numbers and descriptions of guns handed in to “Buy Back” with documentation. Phone up the Weapons Licencing in Queensland and ask the Senior Officer if they have any record of serial numbers and descriptions of guns handed in to “Buy Back” . If they say they have, then ask them to supply the details to the serial number we gave to you, or why their staff are requiring dealers to submit statutory declarations that they handed in firearms to “Buy Back”. If they already have that confirmation, there is no point asking for the declaration. If they have not got a record of those forty-five thousand guns, anyone who used to have a gun or a Gun Licence, all they have to say is they handed it in to Buy Back and signed a statutory declaration and nobody can say any different. If they know they have no record of that forty-five thousand or really any idea what happened to them what’s the point of spending the 18 million dollars registering some of the rest? None at all.